An 84-year-old immobile man who lived alone died after being sent home from the hospital unable to call for assistance as his phone was in the other room.
Samuel Brookes was transported to his bed where he could not reach his pendant alarm or the handheld device as he was left alone for two weeks.
It was only when his grandson went round with some frozen meals for his carer to cook that Mr Brookes was found unresponsive, wedged between his bed and the wall.
Paramedics confirmed the 84-year-old was dead but the senior coroner for Shropshire, Telford and Wrekin said it was not known when he passed away during that fortnight period.
An inquest concluded Mr Brookes passed away following negligence to provide him with his needed care.
A coroner said he was discharged from Russells Hall Hospital in Dudley on April 8th 2024 where he had been admitted after a fall and then died at his home in Netherton near Bridgnorth, Shrops.
The hospital arranged his transport home but failed to rearrange his required care of two carers coming in four times a day.
In a Prevention of Future Deaths report, the coroner has expressed his concerns to the hospital’s chief executive about the inadequate care provided, the fact that his phone was in a different room, and the fact that he was not wearing his alarm pendant around his neck.
The coroner said: ‘Accordingly when Mr Brookes got into difficulty he could not raise the alarm or call for help.’
The hospital has 56 days to reply to his report to contain details of what action is proposed to be taken.
In 2019, Russells Hall Hospital came under fire for its treatment of sepsis. Staff did not meet targets for screening and administering antibiotics within 60 minutes, an inspection found.
The disease can be deadly but the odds improve dramatically if treatment is started promptly.
The hospital in Dudley had already been investigated over 54 deaths occurring between December 2017 and June 2018 after the health watchdog the Care Quality Commission (CQC) discovered patients with sepsis were not being handled properly.
In March 2018, 33-year-old mother-of-six Natalie Billingham died after staff failed to recognise the condition. And in July 2018, Simon Smith, 51, died after he was not given antibiotics for five days.
The CQC previously raised certain concerns about the treatment of patients with sepsis, who were left for hours without testing or treatment. Inspectors said doctors had become ‘frustrated’ at a new NHS focus on sepsis and were failing to take the problem seriously as a result.
How could the ambulance transport crew have left this man in his bed with nothing to reach? Clearly, it was not on their inventory to do so! But even so, common sense would have told them to ensure he had his alarm pendant and phone close to hand, there was no excuse.
If there was going to be nobody at home to welcome him, the hospital should have liaised with his care team before sending him home. However, it appears that this hospital didn’t care and he was sent home in an ambulance. It was a dump and run.
The hospital’s failure to ensure that treatment was provided and the ambulance crew’s failure to make sure he could call for help when they put him in his bed demonstrate a total disregard for basic care requirements.
They will probably just dig out the old saying, ‘lessons have been learned.’ The trouble is that you can’t teach basic common sense.
Hospitals usually discuss the discharge of patients with a family member, and how come it took so long for a family member to take food around to him? Or did the family member simply believe that the carers would be coming in and thus the poor man would be safe? You cannot rely on carers alone – some can’t even boil an egg!
The treatment of elderly people is abhorrent. We should all be treated with respect and dignity which this man was not!
Sadly there is an attitude in some medical circles which influences how the elderly are treated, but you should always treat people how you would expect to be treated yourself because one day they might be in the same boat without a paddle.
THE MONTHLY MOSQUITO 